To properly advise a customer, you usually need to know a little more about their current situation. Sometimes you even need very specific information. Is the customer looking for a new camera lens? Then it's helpful to know what camera they have. Need new winter tires? What car should they be on?
Using a drill-down question gets to the heart of the matter by asking multiple questions at once. Once a customer answers, a follow-up question is displayed with additional options based on the answer given. Are there no more options available? Then your customer has finished answering the question. View an example product finder with drill-down question.
Below we use a drill-down question to discover exactly what kind of car a customer drives to determine what winter tires they need. We ask successively about the brand (Brand), model (Model) and year of manufacture (Year):
A drill-down question can be created in 2 ways: manually (Manual) or by linking directly to the catalog (From catalogue). Below we explain for both ways how to create a drill-down question. We recommend choosing the catalog option if your catalog allows you to. This way you connect your answers directly to the specifications of the products. The matching is done automatically and that saves time. A good catalog for winter tires, for example, clearly indicates for which brand or model of car the tire is suitable.
Step-by-step for automatic drill-down (From catalogue)
You create an automatic drill-down question in four steps:
1. Determine how many levels you need
How many answer steps (levels) does your question have? In our example, a customer can give a total of 3 answers (brand, model and year), so we choose 3 levels:
2. Add input labels
Above the answer field you can display an optional label. If the answers are clear enough and don't need context, you can leave this blank. You can also play with the length of the labels, for example:
Labels formulated as a question.
Labels formulated as a simple term.
3. Choose the right property per 'level' from your catalog
In the example below, we choose the properties "Brand" and "Model" from our winter tire catalog. All possible brands and models are then retrieved and displayed to the customer. If new winter tires are added to the catalog (or are not available) this information is automatically updated.
💡 Tip: Check if the values from your properties are clear enough for your customers, so that they can easily make a choice.
4. Help customers along if their option is not available
Sometimes your client's situation could be exceptional and their brand or model is not among the choices. You then want to ask different follow-up questions to still provide an advice. Set a flow exception and branch off into a separate flow for these types of exceptional situations.
In the example below, the customers can indicate that their answer is not included:
In the "Flow" tab, you can set which question your customers should be directed to if they indicate that their answer is not among them.
You have finished creating and matching your question! 🎉
Step-by-step for manual drill-down (Manual)
You create a manual drill-down question in four steps:
1. Determine how many levels you need
How many answer steps (levels) does your question have? In our example a customer can give a total of 3 answers, so we choose 3 levels:
2. Add input labels
Above the answer field you can display an optional label. If the answers are obvious without giving more context you can leave this blank. You can also play with the length of the labels, for example:
Labels formulated as a question.
Labels formulated as a simple term.
3. Add the answers
Now that the logic of your drill-down question is in place, we can start adding the answers! Let's start with our first 'Level 1' answer, the brand "Audi":
Click + Add answer
Enter "Audi"
Press Enter or click the yellow check mark
We have our first answer!
Now let's click on the little arrow next to "Audi" and determine which Audi models a customer can choose from. Actually, there are quite a few. So instead of using +Add answer to add the models one by one, we'll use +Add multiple answers to add the entire list of models at once.
In the pop-up, simply place each answer on a new line and click Add options:
💡 Good to know: If you have a list of answers in e.g. Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, you can copy + paste everything here at once.
Don't worry about any duplicate answers, we'll filter those out for you.
Finally, we add the manufacture years, in the same way as the models. And we add another option "Other" on Level 1. This is the result:
🤔 You may notice that you can't drag the answers into an order. That's because we automatically sort them in alphabetical order. For your customers, this is the easiest way to find their answer in a long list.
4. Match your products
Matching a drill-down question works exactly the same as any other question. Check Determine Advice Logic in Matching. Since the "deepest" level of your drill-down question contains the final answer you only need to match that level. We do show the full context for each answer, as you can see in this example:
Check the result
Curious about which answer was given the most? Your new drill-down question is also shown in the Aiden Analytics dashboard under the Conversation tab. You'll also see the drop-off rate for the question here. If many customers don't answer this question (or give the answer 'Other') we may be missing certain answer options!